Decarbonization report highlights progress, challenges in commercial buildings

by Christopher Brinckerhoff | December 18, 2023 6:00 am

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The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) published a report on the U.S. commercial real estate sector. Surveying three decades of data, the report, is titled “State of Decarbonization: Progress in U.S. Commercial Buildings 2023.”

Produced in collaboration with Arup Group Ltd., based in London, the report contains historical data, and targeted opportunities for future improvement. The report identifies opportunity areas that can be decarbonized faster such as deep retrofits in refrigerated warehouses where emissions grew.

The report underscores that the U.S. has the tools it needs to reduce building-related emissions, and new federal funds provide the real estate sector with a unique, immediate opportunity to deploy critical improvements swiftly and widely across the nation. For example, the investments from the Inflation Reduction Act’s clean energy and climate action provisions could enable the building sector to meet its proportional share of the Paris target early, in 2029.

With proven decarbonization strategies long championed by USGBC becoming available and cost-competitive, commercial buildings have become 37 percent less carbon intensive and 26 percent more energy efficient on average. However, despite these significant reductions, the report found overall sector emissions of commercial buildings have remained flat since 1990, a result of significant increases in total building floor area.

Peter Templeton, president and CEO at USGBC, says, “This report confirms our progress to date on U.S. commercial building decarbonization and serves as a powerful call to deploy proven solutions at greater speed and scale across all sectors and communities. We can and must work together, with partners across and beyond the building industry, to seize immediate opportunities for achieving our urgent goals.”

Robert Kay, Americas climate and sustainability services leader at Arup, says, “This report is a crucial resource in understanding where we are presently, where we need to be in the very near future, and the strategies we can leverage to help us meet our critical climate goals. We must accelerate decarbonization progress from where each city and state is at right now in order to reach our objectives.”

Click here to download the report.[2]

Source URL: https://www.metalarchitecture.com/news/decarbonization-report/

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